As computer networks have become more prevalent in corporate environments, network management software, which has the ability to solve a number of network problems automatically and remotely, has become crucial. One of the major goals of any efficient network administration setup is the specification and measurement of acceptable performance thresholds for each machine in the network without creating additional network traffic.
Network management software typically manages and automates administrative tasks across multiple machines in a network. Typical network management software allows administrators to run realtime diagnostics, provides realtime measurements, creates reports, logs events, filters events and generates alerts when performance criteria match prespecified conditions, installs applications and remotely configures multiple managed nodes.
One method of detecting problems is via a "policy". A policy is a set of specifications that define thresholds and conditions which trigger automated network administration actions. Policies have been developed which monitor system performance parameters such as percent disk utilization, percent memory I/O activity, network traffic, etc. For example, Hewlett Packard's ManageX includes a set of Intelligence Policies (IPs), comprising scripts containing sets of rules and actions (known as alerts) which take action according to defined thresholds on system counters (including such items as percent free disk space, processor queue lengths, and page faults per second). These Intelligence Policies function as network watchdogs for the systems administrator, constantly measuring the actual performance of each machine on the network against these thresholds.
Performance data obtained from network system software is useful in monitoring parameters of the network system as a whole, and for generating reports. Performance data assists the administrator in pinpointing system problems such as full disks, faulty network cards, etc. However, the type of performance data obtained via network management software in the past has not included a crucial aspect of system performance--namely, performance data illustrative of the performance seen by a user as triggered by a user action. For example, performance data illustrative of the performance seen by a user when attempting to access a server's website may include the length of time it takes for the page to load into the user's browser. As another example, the user may receive a "404 Not Found" error that the website administrator may be unaware of. With the prior art, policies could be set up to monitor the number of "404" errors, but this information did not assist the administrator in determining which web site generates this error.
Accordingly, a need exists for a method for deploying policies that provide useful performance data pertaining to user actions as seen by a user.